Sisterly Savings

This is a Sponsored Post written by me on behalf of PBM Products. All opinions are 100% mine.

“It is important, especially now, for parents to know that there are lower priced yet highly nutritious store-brand formulas that will provide the same benefit to their children as any national brand name formula product”

As you may have heard by now, PBM has won a $13.5 million false advertising judgment against Mead Johnson that has the potential of forever changing the $3.4 billion infant formula industry in the United States and saving parents significant money each year.

As a mom of 3, I know firsthand about purchasing store bought brands instead of brand name items and yes, I myself did purchase store brand formulas on quite a few occasions because of the lower cost and I most certainly wasn’t concerned with the store brand being less nutritious just because of the difference in price.

I find it a little shameless for a major (and reputable) company like Mead Johnson to make up such false claims just to sell their products. Mead Johnson’s false allegations actually cost some parents hundreds of dollars extra in one year of formula purchases. If the company was really concerned with the overall nutrition value of a store brand then why didn’t they just lower their prices on their own brand?

Unfortunately, instead of lowering prices Mead Johnson engaged in false and misleading campaigns against PBM’s competing store-brand of infant formulas (which are sold at Walmart, Sam’s Club, Target, Kroger, Walgreens, and other retailers), suggesting they do not provide the same nutrition as Mead Johnson’s brands.

Mead Johnson actually sent direct mailings to more than 1.6 million parents of “an alarming blurry picture of a child’s cartoon duck next to a clear picture of the same image which suggested that anything other than the Enfamil LIPIL® blend of ingredients is inferior and will result in poor eye and brain development”.

Other parts of the false advertising campaign consist of statements that only Enfamil LIPIL has been proven to confer visual and mental benefits on infants, and store-brand formulas are a “cut-back in nutrition” compared to Enfamil.

PBM Products cost up to 50 percent less than Enfamil® LIPIL® and allows parents to save as much as $600 per year on their formula purchases.

PBM successfully argued that these advertisements were false and misleading especially since PBM store- brand infant formulas have the same nutrients at the same levels as Enfamil. PBM infant formulas are formulated to contain DHA and ARA, and are sourced from the same supplier in amounts which equal or exceed the DHA and ARA in Mead Johnson’s Enfamil LIPIL®.

I think it’s great that Mead Johnson was not able to get away with such misleading information and definitely needs to be held accountable for their actions. If your interested in reading more about the suit, you can read the full press release here.

The details of the decision and the complaint are posted online in full at:

• http://www.pbmproducts.com/docs/Order_Laches.pdf
• http://www.pbmproducts.com/docs/PBM_Complaint_MJ_III_LIPIL.pdf